"I am a galley slave to pen and ink." -Honore de Balzac

Commentary on Chp 3 of Absolution (Reply)

callistawolf requested commentary for "any 500 word section from chapter 3 of Absolution". I pulled out a few sections that I like, but I might have exceeded 500 words. Not that anyone really cares.

“One rule,” she said.

“Yes, of course. Anything,” he hastily responded, unwilling to give up any possibility of a chance to show her who he was.

“This,” she said, waving a hand rather low in front of her body. “This isn’t going to happen.”

His eyes widened in surprise as he registered what she was saying. He found himself ashamed that she would assume his motive in coming here was sexual. That thought had honestly never even crossed his mind. All he had wanted was to prove to Rose that he was her Doctor, not the man he’d left on the beach for her. Everything else could wait.

A chapter is never complete without a bit of foreshadowing. I think this chapter worked as a way to bring down Rose's guard, even if it dropped a little too low too soon.

“You did my wash?” she repeated, looking at him like he’d just grown two heads or had turned blue. “Did it survive?”

I have to admit, I had more than a little fun with making TenII out to be a bit of a moron in this fic. I liked the idea that the two halves were just that, halves. That Ten wasn't exactly Ten after Journey's end and TenII wasn't quite Ten either.

Because of my anger over the way I felt Rose was treated, I suppose I took some aggression out on TenII, but picking on him. I made him a bit hapless and lacking in common sense and cooking skills he might have had if he were a complete person. I suppose it works well with canon as Eleven seems to be missing the dark heaviness of Nine and Ten as an aftermath of the Time War.

“You didn’t ask me his name,” she said.

“Whose?” he asked in surprise, finding himself looking desperately at her hand hoping he hadn’t been as stupid as he’d been with Martha.

A horrible sick feeling grew in his stomach when he couldn’t be sure he was or wasn’t seeing an engagement ring. It took ages before his fears were assuaged by two short words.

“The cat.”

I actually debated on having Rose dating someone in this fic, but then figured it would complicate things more than I would like. I'm sure she's dated a bit in this world, but I feel her job was probably a higher life priority as it was more distracting.

“Okay,” he said, taking the bait. “What is his name?”

“Bingley,” she informed him with a grin.

“Bingley?” he asked, not quite sure he’d heard that right. “As in Charles, ‘Netherfield Park is let at last’, Bingley?”

“None other.”

I had a little fluffy Maltese at the time. He was named Marvin by my great aunt, so we didn't change his name when we took him, but I really thing something like Bingley might have suited him better. Because I had a white fluffy dog that I wanted to name Bingley, Rose got a white fluffy cat named Bingley.

“I said I don’t like Pride and Prejudice,” she repeated, smirking at him as she had another bite of her cake and purposefully took her time drawing the fork back between her lips, keeping eye contact with him the entire time.

...

"It’s actually different.”

“How so?” he asked through a mouthful.

Looking thoughtful for a moment, Rose sipped her wine and drew her feet up underneath her.

“Well, for one thing, Elizabeth marries Bingley.”

Very nearly choking to death on his fork, the Doctor sputtered at her in disbelief. “Who marries Darcy then?”

Coyly taking another long sip of her wine, Rose smiled at his reaction. “Emma Woodhouse.”

“But that’s an entirely different novel!”

“Apparently not anymore,” she giggled.

...

He flipped between two pages and looked up at her in disbelieve and almost horror when he proclaimed, “Mary marries Mr. Collins.”

This started as a joke with my friend sciathan_file. I had named the cat Bingley and things sort of went downhill from there. We began discussing how books and things might be different in an alternate universe. This led to throwing out random twists that could have happened. My version here is far more tame to what happened to the bunny when it marinated in her head for a while. Check it out over at her journal if you haven't read it: Read Between the Lines.

She still blames Bingley for that fic, but I say she can't blame a fictional cat, so I bought her a white cat plush, made it a custom tag and collar and sent it to her as a gift. So now she has a cat named Bingley she can blame things on. I half debated on hunting down my own white fluffy cat and naming it Bingley. I ended up with a fluffy grey kitten named Mjolnir instead.

They sat in silence for a few short moments before she asked him, “Do you remember that one planet with huge veranda?”

Now that was a pleasant thought. Oh, definitely remembered that planet, and what happened on the big veranda. The memory quickly erased any feelings of inadequacy. That had been a fantastic adventure.

“The one with the hammocks?” he asked, leaning a little closer to her, brimming with hope and excitement.

“Yeah,” Rose agreed.

This was reference to a fic I never did write. It was one that I had thought of when rewatching Journey's End and thinking about that planet with the mountains that swayed in the wind. I can see the Doctor having taken Rose there. This one was also counted as one of the 18 weddings the Doctor and Rose have in this 'verse. The the hammock breaking was what validated the marriage, as there was only one way the hammock would break... Someday I might write it, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it. About a third of the "weddings" were things Rose wouldn't have recognized as weddings. The cake mentioned earlier in the chapter was part of another one.

Being so close, touching her so intimately, and her touching him, he noticed a new detail about her he hadn’t realized before.

“You’re cooler,” he gushed before he kissed her again, savouring the sensation, both familiar and new in the same instant.

“No, you’re warmer,” she countered as her fingers began to undo the buttons of his shirt.

Part of the fun of this fic was trying to figure out how the Doctor--who is always very alien in my head--would react to being human. All the sensory input would be different. I would assume colors wouldn't be the same, smells would be more muted, temperature and everything would register on a completely different scale. I don't think I even used half my ideas on the differences.